


Death Comes to All

by The_Fanfic_Mormon



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Beating, Character Death, Depressing, Everybody Dies, Gen, Genocide, Heavy Angst, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity Gems, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Psychological Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 10:11:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18496789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Fanfic_Mormon/pseuds/The_Fanfic_Mormon
Summary: In which Thanos plans just a little more carefully, and our heroes learn that with proper determination, oblivion will make a point to spare none.I get that since it's not a "feel-good, everyone lives" story, this won't be the most popular. But all I ask is that you give it a shot.





	Death Comes to All

**Author's Note:**

> So you know how all the Infinity War fanfics are all "Everyone lives, happy endings, Thanos sucks, blah blah blah?" Fuck that. I made the movie even more miserable that it was! I think that's sort of an achievement. Because honestly, if Thanos was just a tad bit more creative, we'd be fucked. Note the warnings and tags, this is pretty depressing. As per usual with my writing, really. Enjoy!

The God of Mischief has always tried to give off an air of uncaring. He controls the chessboard, the grandmaster that unknowingly moves his pieces until his enemies were caught in a trap they couldn’t escape from.

But at this point, the Mad Titan has just overturned the board. Flames are crackling around him, a noise his desperate mind latches on to in an attempt to escape from the situation before him. The Asgardians are gone. All of them but him, and Thor. Their corpses litter the deck, putrid and burned flesh giving off a smell that’d repel even Ratatoskr.

Thanos and his acolytes came. Slaughtered everyone. Mercy didn’t appear to be a part of their vocabulary. And now his brother’s skull is clenched in the massive purple hand, a small smirk appearing on the Mad Titan’s face.

“The tesseract…”

There’s a pause that seems to last forever.

“Or your brother’s head.”

His minions ready their weapons. Fools. As if he’d think of attacking them all now.

“I assume you have a preference?”

Loki twitches suddenly. He can’t be here, forced to choose between his brother and the universe. What he'd give to have Odin around, the old bastard.

“Oh I do. Kill away.” He wants to slap himself. His damn snark means he’ll have to try and call his bluff.

Thanos looks mildly surprised, but his face resumes its grim determination. Suddenly, the power stone is at his brother’s head. Purple fibers of energy string their way through the side of Thor’s face, and Loki has to dig his nails into his palm to stop himself from running to him.

Thanos gives a push, and half of Thor’s head lights up in violet veins. He takes a few shuddering breaths, trying to endure through the screams of agony. He take another breath. Then another. Then ano-

“Alright, stop!” Loki can barely hear his own voice. The gauntlet leaves Thor’s head, and relief pours over him. Thor will hate him for this. That’s fine. He hardly deserved the seemingly infinite well of love his brother seemed to have for him anyway.

“We don’t have the tesseract.” Thor gasps, and Loki almost detects a laugh in his voice. “It was destroyed on Asgard.”

Guilt strikes the trickster god as he holds his hand out. He can’t meet Thor’s eyes. A disappointment to the end.

A twinge of magic, and the cosmic cube apparates into his outstretched fingers.

Thanos' face shifts into an eager smile.

“You really are the worst, brother.” The mirth is swallowed by the caustic undertones. Of course he’s the worst. He can’t even rescue his brother without empowering a tyrant. Worthless.

“I assure you, brother…” he says, taking slow, methodical steps towards Thanos, “the sun will shine on us again.” He desperately hopes Thor won’t be as dense as he usually is, and pick up on his scheme.

“Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian.” The Mad Titan declares, voice so full of confidence.

In the blink of an eye, a beam shoots out of the power stone, colliding with Thor’s head. Purple energy courses through his brother’s skull as he screams. Loki can’t avert his eyes, no matter how hard he tries.

He finally wrenches his gaze away, just in time to miss the God of Thunder’s head fracture and burst.

In one swift motion the tesseract is wrenched out of his hands by Thanos, while the gauntlet comes up to slam into the charging Hulk’s face. 

Loki is suddenly restrained by snakes of metal, squeezing him so hard it takes all his magic just to keep his lungs working. Ebony Maw smirks over at him, then uses a girder to force his head in the direction of the fight.

Using blasts from the power stone, Thanos drives Banner back. Feigning a blast, the Hulk ducks, only to get the full force of Thanos’ armored knee to the forehead. All this, with one fist still wrapped around the cube. Loki can barely believe it. If the Hulk of all things, for Odin’s sake, can’t beat the Titan, what can?

Thanos tosses the cube to Proxima Midnight in a quick, underhand motion, then slams his fists to the sides of Hulk’s head. The green monster reels back, only to be thrust overhead with a powerful pull.

Gritting his teeth, he walks over to a protruding metal beam. With seemingly little effort, the Hulk is thrust onto it. Loki’s eyes bulge with unrestrained shock as Banner is impaled, green fluid leaking everywhere. The Hulk yells, voice full of suffering, as Thanos looks on.

“Brute strength can be appealing. Yet it hardly can compensate for a strategic mind.” Thanos philosophizes, and Loki wonders in a panicked thought if the Titan appreciates the surreal nature of waxing poetic while surrounded by bodies.

Maw walks over, bowing to his deranged god with the cube as his offering. As he yells bitter curses and slurs at the…the thing who killed his brother, Thanos picks up the cube. Maw spouts some sycophantic praise. The Titan raises the cube, then unceremoniously crushes it.

The burst of energy barely distracts Loki from the horrific scene. Slowly, with a sense of grandeur not previously seen, the space stone is dropped into the gauntlet.

He can’t believe it. He actually can barely conceptualize what is happening. The madman has two infinity stones. The universe is lost.

The space stone glows an innocent blue as the Hulk’s head teleports from his body. As if by cynically comedic timing, the Bifrost activates, sending a decapitated, impaled body flying through space. Corvus Glaive puts an end to Heimdall.

And the last thought that sputters through Loki’s dying mind before his trachea is crushed is that as least Odin, Freya, and Thor aren’t here to see him go.

 

* * *

 

Ebony Maw is a practical creature, or at least he likes to think. Why indulge in excess, when quick and clever movements can accomplish a task with much more expediently?

But as he and Cull Obsidian materialize, to see the tear-stained face of Tony Stark flanked by ridiculous-looking magicians, he can’t help but utilize some mockery.

“Hear me, and rejoice. You are about to end up like that pathetic creature we sent to you.”

Stark flinches back, and Maw’s grin grows wider.

“Your worthless existence will contribute to the universal balance. Your…” and he pauses to make eye contact, “friend already gave his life to the cause of Thanos. Perhaps you should do the same.”

The sorcerers step forward, and-THERE. On the one with the cape. The time stone.

Stark swallows heavily, and steps forward, probably ready to unleash some acerbic comeback or asinine statement. Maw shakes his head. A shame it’s always the smart ones that end up acting like idiots.

The cloaked one- Strange, was it? He read the brief, but these humans are just that forgettable- pulls Stark back before he can say something stupid.

“You are trespassing on this planet, and have already committed a murder.” The magical disks around their fists glow brighter. “Leave, or you may suffer the same fate.”

Oh, the anger resonating off of them all is delicious! As well as the foolishness. As if he’d dirty himself in hand-to-hand combat with these apes.

He can sense the mass of metal cables in the ground below him. Perfect. With his arms held behind his back, he begins to exposit.

“You only need surrender the time stone. At least you will remain alive.” _For now_. “Honestly. I do have a sense of honor, you know.” He flashes a disconcerting grin that causes the trio to collectively take a step back.

Then motions furiously upward, hands hidden behind him.

The cables, in the blink of an eye, burst from the ground. One goes right through Stark’s body, so quick that it slices his body in two from groin to skull. The second does the same to Strange’s sidekick, magical energy crackling like fireworks as it dissipates.

As for Strange himself, the wires snake around him, apply a crushing pressure that quickly causes the magician to pass out.

His cape begins to stir. _How unique. Semi-sentient apparel. Like a party trick._ Maw rips several bricks from the building besides him, quickly filing them away to spikes.

With the flick of his wrist, the spikes pin the cape to the ground. As it writhes, a quick readjustment of Strange’s restraints isolate the piece of clothing from its master. He guides the unconscious man to his feet, and the materialization beam marks the end of a successful extraction.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter swings from building to building, watching as the disk in the sky accelerates upward towards the stratosphere. He has no idea what’s going on, but Mr. Stark had to know.

He comes to the block where the ship was hovering over, slowing his descent for a relatively soft landing on the cracked road beneath him. He turns around and-

The bile rises in his throat immediately. The mask gets ripped off, and Peter vomits hard. Dry-heaving, as tears stream from his eyes, he turns again to see the bisected body of Tony.

He slowly sits down, barely aware of the sirens in the distance. Mr. Stark was dead. What was he supposed to do now?

 

* * *

 

 

This was supposed to be a date night, of sorts. A high school-esque romance, where two people on opposite sides are in love.

Now they are watching blurry cell-phone footage through a pizza shop window of Tony Stark being brutally murdered, blurred censors kicking in at the last moment.

Vision can’t really comprehend what he just saw. Tony is…dead. He’s dead. Sir is gone.

Wanda’s mouth is wide open, lips flapping open and shut like a fish on land in wordless shock. He doesn’t know what to do. Should he rally the rest of the Avengers? Would it even matter? The stone’s sense of warning had been vague. Was this what was to come?

Wanda turns to him. “We, we need t-to go. We have to leave.” Her voice is trembling, and Vision can tell she’s barely holding it together.

“Should we-“

With no warning, a golden blade arises from the darkness, curves through the air, and takes off Wanda’s head.

A creature, some pale gaunt alien, gives him a toothy smile before a force slams him into the wall across the street.

He needs to go. He really needs to go. He goes to get up, then shudders as the blade passes through his chest. H-h-he can’t phase.

The second monster, some blue women, holds him down. The pale one takes his glaive, aims it towards his head, and Vision can feel as the hooked end punctures beneath his outer shell.

“Wanda…” he sighs, as sparks fly out of his head. There’s a tugging sensation, a phenomenally painful headache, and then nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

 

As the groovy rhythms of The Spinners fade away, Gamora can’t help but be shocked at the devastation before her.

When ships crash, there’s a main chunk. Or maybe several large chunks with a spray of debris. Never total dismantlement of the ship, with desecrated corpses pin-wheeling through space. Small spheres of blood wobble through the void, occasionally smearing against the windshield much to Rocket’s chagrin.

“What the hell happened here?” Peter asks, awe in his voice.

It’s then that the headless corpse slams into the _Milano_.

“Wipers, wipers! Get it off!” Rocket shouts, as the rest of the Guardians cringe.

Gamora can barely focus on all this. There’s literally only one person she knows who’d be able to inflict this level of damage. Does that mean he’s started? _God, of course he has, and I let him. Barely did a thing to stop his plans. The dead are on me_.

So lost in thought is she that she barely notices the alert on her layout.

Suddenly Mantis starts yelling, screaming about how she’s detecting a presence too powerful to be described and how it hurts so much. Gamora drags her eyes away from the women’s scared face to see that the sensors are warning her about a massive incoming ship.

 _He’s here_.

And suddenly the ship is shuddering and shaking as it gets battered by energy cannons. She can’t focus, on anything. Drax and Rocket are going for the weapons, but everyone else just seems to be in a panicked frenzy.

There’s this sound, like a synthesizer getting put through a vacuum, and suddenly Thanos is standing in front of her, a mocking smile on his face.

The gauntlet makes a fist, and suddenly Drax, Rocket, and Groot are ash. They don’t turn to ash, or dissolve into ash. There is no transition. They go from being there to a grey pile on the floor in an instant.

She screams. She grabs her sword, and it’s not there, there are only- bubbles? And there’s a strong purple hand shoulder, one she knows all to well-

“Daughter.”

Peter is there, pointing a gun at the Titan’s head. Mantis is standing in the corner, weeping into the pile that used to be the rest of their team.

“Peter, shoot me. Kill me, please!” She begs, desperately hoping love doesn’t stop him.

“Oh, daughter.” Thanos sighs, shaking his head slightly. “You expect too much of him."

Peter is stunned. _I should have had this conversation with him earlier_. Of course he won’t. He’s idealistic, and sweet, and would never shoot the person he loves the most.

“G-Gamora, what? I’m not- I can’t…” he trails off.

His hand is shaking, eyes raw with tears. She wants to cry, to scream, anything to make her forget the hand pressing into her But he taught her well, to never reveal weakness.

The edges of Thanos’ mouth curl into a grin.

“As I thought. You should’ve picked better.”

Peter blinks, and then he’s melting. His body liquefies, slowly becoming a puddle of brown and red on the floor. The glow of the reality stone next to her head makes it difficult to see, and as she lets out a choking sob, she’s grateful at that at least it was quick.

“I need information. Your sister has been…uncooperative. Perhaps you can be more compliant.”

The last thing she sees before the blue void swallows her are Mantis’ pleading eyes. She goes to yell something to the women, but in a flash of black she finds herself on Thanos’ ship.

 _We were dead the moment I left him_. _I’ve killed us all._

 

* * *

 

 

Doctor Strange opens his eyes, and nearly vomits from the pain. It’s sharp, and ebbing, and by Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth it’s _everywhere_. He can barely see. He can barely think.

 _I can’t even concentrate enough to cast a spell_.

Ebony Maw’s thin figure comes into view, his piercing eyes slicing through Strange’s.

“These devices were once used for surgery.” He chuckles, flicking clear needles around with a rustle of his fingers.

“Now, I initially would have pierced your vaguely irritating form with as many of these devices as needed to force you into surrendering the time stone.”

Maw shoves his hand forward, and suddenly there his legs are being impaled a dozen times over.

_Oh god hurts so much pain pain hurt stop pain-_

He screams, as the pain shifts in new ways he could never imagine. Cull Obsidian, outside of view, gives a hefty snort.

Maw quirks his eyebrow up, then turns around, flicking his hand up. The pain resides.

“Yet a new development came through. The extraction of the mind stone proved to be more…expedient than expected. Proxima and Corvus really do make an effective team.”

A flash of blue in his periphery, and Thanos is there. Two more lackeys flank him. Obsidian moves to stand with him.

“So rather than waste time with torture,” Maw grins, malice obvious in his voice, “Lord Thanos will just make you give it to him.”

Thanos steps forward. The multi-colored glean on his left hand reveals five infinity stones.

_Are those…tears? What could this monster have to cry about?_

“Today…” the Mad Titan begins, looking off to some point unknown, “I have lost more than I could ever bear.”

He kneels, and Strange can see the demented mourning in his eyes.

“First, my planet. Then my daughters.” He pauses, and his face shifts to an imperceptible emotion. “But often times, the hardest choices require the strongest wills.”

“Too frequently, those who can achieve what needs to be done aren’t willing to do what is needed. I will.”

Strange opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. The stinging pain gets to his vocal cords first.

“I can see that I will not be getting the stone voluntarily. A shame.”

A fist is formed, yellow light spilling out of the center.

 

**_You’ll give him the stone._ **

_No I won’t! You’re a fool if you think I don’t know what you are._

**_Who is truly the fool? Look into the possible futures, magician. You had a chance in one of them. But Tony Stark is dead. There isn’t a future where you win._ **

_It doesn’t matter, I can still deny you one stone. I can deny you your victory, your genocide._

**_As if you had a choice. He can see the one you love. He can see the planet you love. He can rip her to shreds, raze the Earth to molten slag._ **

_I can’t. I won’t. I refu-_

**_YOU WILL REFUSE NOTHING. Your mind right now belongs to Thanos of Titan. And you will GIVE THE STONE._ **

_No, I-_

**_You will._ **

_I-I…_

**_YOU WILL._ **

_I……will._

The pressure on his mind releases. He opens wet eyes to see the green gem drifting towards the Mad Titan.

“NO! Nonononononon-“

“Shhh, my child.” He grasps the stone with thick purple fingers. “Watch the making of the universe’s savior.”

The green stone fits into place on his thumb. Thanos howls in pain, tensing as the rainbow energy flows through his veins. His acolytes look on as with clenched teeth, he stabilizes himself.

_Nononononono god no-_

The Mad Titan raises his arm, gazing in awe at his bejeweled fist. The Children of Thanos lead forward eagerly as his thumb meets his middle finger.

“NO! STO-“

* _Snap*_

 

* * *

 

 

In deep space, a forgemaster mourns in solitude. His metal hands cannot wipe tears away. When his body begins to come apart, flaking away, he lets out a breath of relief.

 

* * *

 

Mantis drifts through space on a dying ship. She can feel as a wave of death spreads through the universe. She asks, begs, pleads for it to take her.

It leaves her in the hell that is life.

 

* * *

 

Nebula lies disassembled on the floor of a prison cell on her father’s ship. As the power drains out of her processing unit, she allows herself to think of Gamora in her last moments. At least in passing, they might see each other again.

 

* * *

 

Steven Rogers looks up from grabbing his Wakandan shield to see Bucky fade away to nothing. His mind goes blank, unable to conceptualize the loss. He barely notices Sam doing the same, as a distressed Rhodes grasps at the air that used to be the Flacon. Natasha is staring slack-jawed, misery slipping onto her face like a mask.

In the room adjacent, Shuri screams as her brother slips into nonexistence.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter has nothing to live for. His hero is dead. His father-figure is dead. So sitting on the Empire State Building, gazing down at the city below for hours on end seems no better than doing anything else. He’s been crying nonstop, never seeming to run out of fresh tears to shed.

There’s a tingle. Like when his legs fall asleep. He feels himself begin to break apart, and yet Peter Parker cannot find it in himself to be scared.

His dissolving body collapses at the exact moment his final sob is heaved.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you are all very sad, for then I will have accomplished my goal as a writer. I decided to keep Mantis alive, seeing as I feel bad that she barely gets any characterization in the movies. A small amount of pity, I suppose. Had to include that iconic image, as it is probably m favorite panel in any comic book ever. There will not be a sequel, you all shall toil in the angst I've created! Muh ha ha! Kudos and comments are appreciated.


End file.
